Pet and Animal Thread

[DannyBeane]

[DannyBeane]

I upgraded the thermostat to Frankie's heat pad and now he's loving it.

[Benjamin Haines]

So, this past Tuesday morning, Hershey, the oldest of our two living cats, had a vet appointment and afterward he managed to escape from the car in the parking lot and run into a thicket. He's fearful by nature and he hates car rides and vet trips so when he bolted he just kept panicking and wouldn't come back when called. The thicket he escaped into has a busy highway at the bottom of the hill to the east and a lot of mountainous, coyote-inhabited woodland in every other direction.

We spent four days searching for Hershey, clearing the thicket, knocking on doors, putting up flyers and canvassing the woods. Someone finally called to report sighting him Friday night near their apartment complex up the street from the vet's office. We found Hershey hiding in the middle of a long drainage pipe beneath a driveway on undeveloped property.

Working with the caller, his neighbor and an Animal Control worker, it took us two hours to get Hershey out of that tunnel and into a little cage so we could bring him home safely. He was exhausted and terrified but once we coaxed him close enough to one end of the tunnel for Tab to grab him, he didn't resist or try to flee. He whined in his little cage during the car ride and I thought he would be traumatized and reclusive when we got home but it only took him about ten minutes to get his bearings from walking around the apartment. Then he was purring, eating, drinking water and gratefully lounging about his home, acting like himself.





Never give up!

[Benjamin Haines]

About a month ago, I volunteered at a local cat shelter for the first time. Among the residents there was a 17-year-old female named Star, who had recently been diagnosed with diabetes and had just gotten her first insulin injection earlier that day. Star had lived there for most of her life from 2010 to 2018, until she was finally adopted by a family at age 13, but they just returned her to that shelter at the start of September because their other cats were attacking her, causing the fur around her neck and the base of her tail to start falling out. Star was being kept isolated in her own room there at the shelter, away from any other cats. She had some obvious respiratory issues with how loud and congested her breathing sounded, as well as a yeast infection in her ears, and she also seemed like she really had to force herself to move around as though she was experiencing joint pain. She was desperate for human contact and all she wanted to do was lie on my lap when I was there in her room.

My lady and I knew that Star belonged in our home, so we adopted her later that week. Her name at the shelter for all those years had been Star but we learned that the people who adopted her for the past four years had called her Niblet, so we’ve opted to call her Star-Niblet for double the familiarity. After giving her injections of just one unit of insulin every 24 hours for a couple of weeks, we took her to our regular animal hospital last week so they could run a glucose curve panel throughout the day along with a urinalysis, and they found that she is not diabetic. Her blood glucose was on the low side when she was on insulin and there was no glucose in her urine, so she hasn’t needed an insulin injection for a week now. We’re going to run another urinalysis early next week to make sure that her levels are still good without the insulin.

Star-Niblet's diet now consists entirely of low-fat canned food without any high-carb dry food. To help with her congested breathing, the vet prescribed her an oral antibiotic liquid which we gave her twice a day for ten days. We’re also giving her a daily joint health supplement and we’re cleaning her ears with medication every other day. It has all made a tremendous difference. Her breathing quickly improved once she started getting that antibiotic and I’d say the sounds of her nasal congestion are now 90% gone. The fur around her neck and the base of her tail is growing back and she’s already putting more mass on her slender body, as the vertebrae of her back protruded noticeably when we adopted her but that has gotten much better.

This cat loves to play! I didn’t think she would when I first saw her at the shelter but now that she’s feeling better, breathing better, having more energy and muscle mass, she has shown an affinity for playing with strings, scratching posts and catnip. We’re certainly taking care not to over-exert her because she is 17 but she straight-up demands to be played with. She also just randomly runs at top speed through the apartment whenever she feels like it. It’s amazing to see this cat be so spry at her age.

Our biggest concern when we adopted Star-Niblet was how she would get along with our other two cats, Mercury (female, 10) and Casper (male, ~6), since the purported reason why her previous family returned her to that shelter was because their other cats had recently taken to attacking her. We’re keen to avoid anything like that here but so far neither of them have shown any hostility toward her. Star-Niblet demonstrated an immediate dislike of Mercury and Casper, which is understandable. She growls a warning at them whenever they walk near her and she still doesn’t seem to want any contact or interaction with them but they haven’t made any effort to attack her at all. Casper is the most eager to try to make friends with her, frequently rolling around and playing within her eyeline to show her how much fun he can be, but he is also the most terrified of this little old lady cat who is less than half his weight. He’ll sneak up behind her to sniff at her until she swivels around and hisses at him as he runs away hissing. Mercury just seems bewildered by her but she doesn’t mind when Star-Niblet lies down nearby, nor is Mercury afraid to go near her. That’s funny because Mercury has always been very hostile toward other cats aside from our two late male cats with whom she grew up (KC and Hershey) and she was extremely averse to Casper moving in with us last Fall because she had spent months hating him through the window when he was a stray. Star-Niblet has likewise shown more of a tolerance for Mercury’s presence than she has for Casper, probably because she has more in common with Mercury since they’re both small senior females. I’m sure that Star-Niblet will get along with both of them as time goes on.

Photos of Star-Niblet:
https://i.imgur.com/yUO1uBr.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/WKZUEme.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/O9PA2d7.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/fVuRESS.jpg

Star-Niblet and Casper: https://i.imgur.com/X0PKrsm.jpg

Mercury and Star-Niblet: https://i.imgur.com/4iRSTkc.jpg
Star-Niblet and Mercury resting near each other: https://i.imgur.com/tmyUE6N.jpg
Mercury at the window while Star-Niblet sleeps: https://i.imgur.com/zhjOjH2.jpg

[DannyBeane]

Awww she looks like a sweatheart

[Benjamin Haines]

On December 30, I took Star-Niblet to the vet for a checkup and they found a swollen, reddened mass on her skin between her right rear thigh and her mammary glands. It wasn't there during her previous checkup in November and it didn't seem to hurt her when they touched it but we didn't want to take any chances and opted to have them remove it as soon as possible. They were able to squeeze her in for a surgery appointment on January 4. Because of her age and the risk of her kidneys not handling anesthesia, they just gave her a mild sedative and administered a localized numbing agent so they could quickly cut it off and stitch her up. The procedure went smoothly and she handled it very well.

They sent the mass to be analyzed and I got the results yesterday. It was indeed a mammary carcinoma. Every millimeter of what they removed showed traces of cancer, so it's quite possible that the cancer went deeper than they were able to cut due to her not being fully sedated. I've booked the next available surgery appointment, which is currently February 3 and I'll be calling every day to see if any slots have opened. The doctor wasn't in today but I'll talk to her tomorrow about any other vets further out she would recommend who might have an earlier date available.


This SUCKS. Seriously, she lives in a cat shelter from age 5 to age 13, then she finally gets adopted in old age and four years later she gets brought back to that shelter at age 17, and then she gets adopted by us and four months later she gets cancer?!? She doesn't deserve this at all.

[Benjamin Haines]

Thankfully an appointment slot became available on Friday, so Star-Niblet will not have to wait until next month. We're taking her back to the vet tomorrow. I know anesthesia is risky but we have to get any deeper trace of that carcinoma out of her. I really hope that we caught this soon enough to stop it from spreading.

[Benjamin Haines]

Everything went smoothly with Star-Niblet's surgery yesterday and they ended up not needing to anesthetize her. They just used a sedative and a local numbing agent again and they were still able to make a larger incision at the site of that mass. Her blood work came back looking really good, so now we're just waiting on the analysis of her removed skin and a sample from her lymph nodes to determine whether the cancer has spread.

She handled everything really well and she was immediately glad to be back home in the afternoon. She didn't like having to fast since 10 PM the night before and so she has been eating eagerly ever since she got home. She also doesn't like having to wear a soft cone on her head overnight to keep her from biting at her stitches but right now she's sleeping happily coneless next to me.

[Benjamin Haines]

The analysis results showed no trace of cancer cells in Star-Niblet's lymph nodes or in the additional skin they removed from around the site of that carcinoma. We caught it in time. We still need to keep checking her regularly but as of now she is cancer-free, which is a huge relief.

She is eating well, sleeping well and healing well. She gets her stitches removed on Thursday morning. We don't know exactly when Star-Niblet was born in the first part of 2005 but she'll be 18 in the coming months. I am very glad that she's with us.

[lhb412]

^ Great to hear!

[Benjamin Haines]

^ Thanks. She had her stitches removed on Thursday morning. She is as happy as can be now that she no longer needs to wear that soft cone on her head and she can groom herself freely.